End of Cottage Rule? Please?

You could easily improve stone without violating the cottage rule.

The problem with stone is, that it provides immense survivibility with a moderate offensive penalty and a huge penalty to mobility while the rest of the set provides less survivibility with no practical difference in the mobility penalty.

Because the mobility penalty is so steep, there's really no reason to use the standard armors. Minus Psi of course. It's just as tedious to use all armors +rooted as it is Granite +rooted.

The fix wouldn't be a sweeping change to granite, it would be a movement of the mobility penalty from rooted, adding the same close to ground only effect from Electric's grounded to maintain pourpose, and adding the removed penalty to granite to maintain the same level of mobility penalty when in granite.

A look at the endurance costs for the various toggles would be next to better represent the endurance to survivibility ratio.

Who cares? The cottage rule gets broken whenever the devs want to break it! They broke it by changing Conserve Power to Energize in Elec Armor, now they're doing the same thing for Energy Aura! How about doing it for Dimension Shift or the entire Stone Armor set or other crappy, outdated, archaic powers(ets)? Nobody is saying devs should go and change powers thoughtlessly just because they can, but they don't need to have a fake "rule" in place that they can point to when the masses cry out for underperforming or just pointless powers and powersets to be changed or buffed.

Do you really think there are a ton of Peacebringers out there that LIKE the fact that their version of Footstomp does knockBACK instead of knockDOWN, thus marginalizing the usefulness of it in relation to all of their other AoE or Melee attacks (not to mention the team's)? Hell, it doesn't just hurt the rest of the Peacebringer's powers, it hurts ITSELF! It's a PBAoE non-nuke attack with a decently quick recharge that knocks everything out of PBAoE range. Whose bright idea was that? You think there are noobs who go Gravity controller and take Dimension Shift thinking it sounds awesome just to find out it's basically not only useless but downright detrimental for the majority of the game content? What about Group Flight or Whirlwind?

I agree completely that Stalkers should be the KINGS of single target damage. Even as the game is, though, they just aren't. They aren't the best at damage and they're the least survivable of the melee classes. Their ST damage is comparable to, maybe better than, a Scrapper's, depending on the situation, and their AoE damage can be virtually nonexistent depending on the Stalker's chosen primary. I posted my personal opinion in the Stalker forum, which basically involves dealing a portion of un-resistable AS damage that scales with enemy rank. Assigning it to rank would (presumably) bypass most, if not all, of the problems brought up with un-resistable AS damage because you could simply turn it off against Civilian rank targets or Hamidon rank targets. It would fit the concept of a Stalker as an assassin, exploiting a weak spot, as well as being able to deal good damage against hard targets like AVs and GMs, making Stalker the true ST damage King when it matters most.

No, they aren't. They're adding an effect to a power. That is not "breaking the cottage rule."

Conserve Power - END discount.
Energize: END discount... plus a heal.

Basic purpose stays the same.

This has, of course, been pointed out multiple times already. With, I believe, that *exact same example.*

Now, they *are* doing it (arguably, as you could see it as "AOE control," but it's a somewhat weak argument to maintain) with Repulse for Stalkers.

Regardless, go read Arcanaville's post. I'd say up a ways, but it may be a page back or something for you - this thread's only two pages long for me.

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They're not just "adding an effect to a power," they're changing the primary purpose of the power completely. Energize has only 1/2 the endurance discount of Conserve Power and lasts 1/3 the duration. The primary purpose of the power was changed entirely while the old primary purpose was kept as a pretty moot secondary effect. I would still consider it a violation of the cottage rule because of this. You wouldn't now use Energize for a minor 30 second endurance discount, you'd use it when you need to recover some HP. The intent of the power was changed, the power was relabeled, given a different name and icon. Can it still be used for an endurance discount? Sure. But it's not nearly as powerful as Conserve Power, and makes a pretty poor substitute for that particular purpose. I've never seen any whinging about it, though, because most people acknowledged that Elec Armor needed a self heal a lot more than it needed a second end management power.

It would be like, in Castle's original example, changing Build-Up from a +80% damage +20% to-hit 10 second buff, to changing it to a power that summons a small cottage in front of you while, at the same time, providing a 40% damage and 10% to-hit buff for about three seconds.

I'm not denying that there are other ways to fix Stone Armor, far from it, you could do quite a bit to make the rest of stone actually worthwhile. The problem comes back to IOs; more specifically that I've seen granites who explicitly build for speed and movement JUST to compensate for granite. Even if Rooted became a clone of Grounded (which it needs), it's perfectly possible to just run granite in all non Mineral situations because IOs can easily and absolutely be built for recharge and speed. Now, I'm not saying this is a good build or the best build, but Stone as a set overall has little, if no options, for a truly legitimate build besides "Compensate for Granite's penalties."

Quite honestly, the set overall has issues all around, but changing granite even slightly (for example, would cause an extreme shift of balance simply because Stone Armor as it stands is designed for you to either be in a literal "Minerals with maybe other toggles" mode or "Granite" mode with zero in between. Doubly so with inventions, and I do realize I'm kinda moving the goal posts a little here, if "Out of Granite" can defense cap while maintaining good resists and zero penalties, there's never, ever a reason to go into Granite. Alternatively, if Granite's the ur mode to be in, with or without IOs, then the rest of the set becomes worthless. The entire set's philosophy is very, very dated and the only true parallel, as far as literally any sets go, is Dual Pistols; and even that is not a true parallel (different ammo for different types doesn't work out all that well).

That's mostly the point people are trying to make: quite a large amount of much older sets are built around a design philosophy that we really don't follow or care about now. Force Field is virtually worthless in almost every way if you bring it up against Cold, much more so with the addition of incarnates and Clarion. This was made shockingly clear at the advent of Willpower which required a complete overhaul of Invuln's numbers, and again when Banes/Widows made Stalkers laughably worthless, soliciting a big remake/buff to the stalkers, which added the huge AoE CC to AS (which I'm kinda surprised has gone unmentioned).

The cottage rule had a place years ago when sets had a legitimate place in the world and every set brought something genuinely and honestly different. The advent of inventions created a unique situation where certain formerly different sets became much more similar or one became blatantly stronger (such as Kat/BS), while newer sets coming out completely invalidated or aped pre-existing sets (cold, willpower, elec armor, energy aura, etc). It seems that, these days, the unique design lies in the mechanic tied to the set then the actual powers themselves.

I mean, think about it: All the original defensive sets had completely unique god modes, despite a few of them sharing powers such as dull pain, or recon, or even just passives. Invuln had Unstoppable, Stone had Granite, SR had Elude, Regen had MoG (and IH), Ice had Hibernoob, Fire had RotP, and Dark had Soul Transfer. Even the pairs that were close (US and Evade, RotP and ST) had unique and noticeable differences that made them interesting and separate. Back then, we knew nothing about animation speed affecting powers, or how defenses could fully work in conjunction with each other, or little small details that are considered common knowledge today. The design philosophies for all these sets were completely and utterly different then how powers are designed now, and some of these sets (PBs, Dark Armor, FF and Stone Armor, I'm looking at you) would just never, ever be designed in this day and age.

Thus, the cottage rule needs to vanish and these old sets need to be revived and legitimately brought up to date with newer, shinier sets. It gives more respect to the veterans that have stuck through years of playing, and it brings something that the game's been lacking for a while: balance. Heck, as a compromise, why couldn't we just expand the existing power sets we have and lock out choices per level? We already know we have the tech to do so: See also VEATs and FU/BU for Widows, so why not? Instead of going "NO, BLACK HOLE MUST STAY AND BE BALANCED AS SUCH, COTTAGES DEMAND IT!" (caps optional) why not turn around and go "Yea, Black Hole's outdated as hell/terrible, we could just insert another power that shows up at its level and give the players the option to choose one or the other, with both having the same function."

Before, things were balanced around having SOs and damned if you could ever get anything as amazing as a HO without spending weeks climbing a mountain in a deadly blizzard to cheat to kill a boss because the devs didn't want it done that way. Nowadays, devs have to worry about defense caps, over buffing, damage caps, incoming damage, outgoing damage, and AT modifiers, nevermind animation times and god knows what else to really care about balancing something around an enhancement I'm almost certain half of the playerbase doesn't even know about. I mean, let's be honest here, how many people even know what a Hydra enhancement is? When LRSF, everyone started flipping out because "OMG, SHOES ARE GONNA BE THE BOMB!" Nowadays, if your build doesn't cost nine figures at minimum, you're just being a lazy slacker.

Talk about the idea, not some outdated bunk rule that was designed for a game we barely even play any more. As players and paying customers, we can say as a community that some things are simply unbalanced or outdated (Energy Aura, Invuln, Poison, and Stalkers proved this). Or we can squabble endlessly about how things should never change and things are fine the way they are, etc.

Man, I went long.

Edit:
Oh I want to add, more cottage change examples: MoG, Old school controller pets (man, I remember swarms of those buggers, good times), MoG, Fluffy, and MoG. Bonus points if you know what a SHOE is.

Maybe give Placate a reasonably strong, but short (well, shorter than the recharge), AoE/PBAoE -ToHit effect? Placate one foe, throw the others off enough that they also stand a lesser chance of hitting both you AND the team.

edit: or give it with AS...hard to hit things when your reaction is "whoa, WHAT THE!?!"

Not really talking about a "bunch" of AoE. In most cases just the one 7ft melee PBAoE they lost from the Scrapper version of the same set. Martial Arts with Dragon's Tail given back to it will still have less AoE than Elec Melee or Spines. AoEs aren't a problem for Stalkers. We have some now and the sets that do are generally better regarded than the ones that don't.

Stalker AS causes fear which causes a to-hit debuff. Doesn't help with their pitiful damage at all though.

Still gives +DEF and +RES

Still summons X number of pets depending on which summon it is

Still summons a pet

Oh, and MoG was effing horrible. IH was Regen's godmode.

And this right here is the eternal problem with the cottage rule, if you genuinely believe that old school MoG and new MoG were even remotely the same, you're just insane. Sure, they share similarities (they buff you), but the absolute intent was absolutely nothing alike. Old school troller pets were meant to be spammed, as they had a set life duration and could be summoned in multiples. Fluffy was rooted and functioned more like a timer then a persistent pet. Even Unyielding (which used to root you) could be argued as "the same" even though the design intent was radically different.

I could turn this around and say change sonic resonance shields to buff 1% resist each and give 1000% HP regen and I'd get called insane, but the shields still buff resist! No cottage rule breaking, I'm just buffing something else more! Powers have been changed to ignore the cottage rule before, even recently (Entropic Shield being the big one atm), and the changes will continue as was shown by EA. It has not even been a strict, unchangeable law just more a soft guideline that sounds good to people.

Ah, thanks. I have to admit to not playing a stalker past level 8 or so. I will eventually just to get one to 50, but I've not yet really felt the need to with Scrappers/Brutes available (sorry, devs and stalker fans).

I just want to correct some misinformation here.

AS has two secondary effects

the first is an unresistable -7.5% To-hit debuff

the second is a chance(I think it's 50%) for a mag 5 fear

the two effects are independent of each other and trigger separately.

the to-hit always occurs when a target survives and the fear has a chance to occur.

So you're telling me that New MoG and Old MoG are completely antithetical to each other and have nothing in common? Or are we using different definitions of "remotely the same"?


Oh. Apparently we are since you admit they ARE similar and therefore ARE remotely the same.


Old MoG was a "god-mode" that also was an instant lose. Sure it ramped up your RES and DEF, but also put you down to a sliver of health and completely shut off your Regen and made it impossible to heal you. It was garbage then and it was a good thing it got changed.

However, again, Regen didn't need the "god-mode" of MoG. Instant Healing was its god-mode. MoG only existed to counter alphas which was what Regen was weak to. New MoG was therefore crafted to do exactly that at a much better rate than Old MoG.


Old Controller pets were meant to be summoned. End of story.


In which case you're conflating "design intent" with "power mechanics." The cottage rule is in play over mechanics, not intent.


Change it slightly so that RES was still a viable option and you'd be alright. 1% is negligible. 5% or maybe 10% and you'd be perfectly okay to do that.


So long as Entropic Aura still provides mez protection, there is no violation.

Entropic Aura no. But the change to Repulse sure seems to break the cottage rule. A PBAoE knockback aura has been changed to a PBAoE Stun aura. Anyone who had taken the power (1st mistake) and slotted it for extra knockback (2nd mistake) can no longer do so.

I mean, the core function as an AoE control aura hasn't really changed, but all the mechanics have.

I completely forgot about Repulse, so thank you for bringing that up as well. As for Entropic Aura, Energy Aura used to be the only brute defensive secondary without a taunt aura (it was baked into Energy Drain), so you could technically exist and play without endangering yourself in that manner. Now, Entropic Aura can presumably be slotted taunt and Energy Aura as a whole has to deal with a constant taunt presence. The taunt factor may or may not have been removed from Energy Drain, which would likewise be changing the power's intent in that manner.

I notice people are still dancing with futility asking for the cottage rule to be revoked. Well, can't say I didn't try. But as to this specific example, two things. First, Energize was changed to address specific balance issues in Electric Armor that were not practically resolvable within its design limits without making significant changes to the set. It had a cottage rule exemption justification if it needed one. Second, it didn't need one because Energize is not actually significantly worse than Conserve Power used to be at endurance management.

Conserve Power's original recharge was 600s (the same as the version in Energy Aura now) which would be far too long for a heal power. So it was reduced to 120 seconds which is 1/5th the duration. That on its own would make the endurance discount five times more powerful, albeit in a way difficult to get full usage out of. So its duration was reduced by a third and its strength cut in half. Net, its uptime is now 1.7 times higher, and its strength is now half as strong. That's an overall reduction in numerical effect of about 15%. In other words, Energize has 85% the endurance reduction numerical strength of Conserve Power. That is a minimal reduction. What's more, its probably more *usable* as endurance management because endurance manangement is far more useful when its up more often than when its up less often but stronger.

Lets three slot both powers for recharge and ask players which would they rather have: about 100% endurance reduction for 90 seconds with about three and a half minutes of downtime, or 50% endurance reduction for 30 seconds with about 30 seconds of downtime. I'm not even talking about the heal in Energize either: I'm just talking about the endurance reduction.

Or lets add on 3-slotted hasten and ask, on average, would they rather have 100% end reduction for 90 seconds with two and a half minutes of downtime, or 50% end reduction for 30 seconds with about 20 seconds of downtime.

Or, lets go all the way and ask the min/maxers which would they rather have, the power that can be made perma (Energize requires +300% recharge to go perma) or the one that cannot be made perma by any means (at the recharge cap of +400% or 5.0 total recharge Conserve Power still has 30 seconds of downtime every two minutes.


So the reason why most people don't complain about Energize is not just that it got a heal, but it also, for most players, got *better* at endurance reduction. It certainly did not significantly damage the power for the vast majority of players using it for endurance management.

So Energize had a cottage rule justification, but it didn't even need to use it.

It's actually a 25% chance, at least according to Mids'. And the Chance of Fear is an AoE--successfully landing the Assassin's Strike can potentially cause fear to any critter in the group. It's kind of rad when it works.

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To further sidetrack the discussion, I have a hard time disagreeing with this. I love me some Stalkers, and they definitely aren't the "glass cannons" they seem like they ought to be... they're just glass capguns right now.

My suggested fix was unpopular, but I still feel like it fit the intended playstyle of a Stalker: buff single-target attacks to do 10-15% more damage by default than Scrappers with the same damage cap, with a small (5%-ish) nerf to their current AoE damage as a way to specialize.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Its actually not so much a violation as the rule in actual practice. The devs decided that the functionality of repulse was sufficiently antithetical to stalkers that there was a critical requirement to replace it. The power was changed when the devs collectively became convinced that there was no other way to address that issue, *and* the opportunity existed to expend enough resources to make that change within the general context of a holistic review of what the powerset required in total to function as it should.

That's exactly what the "cottage rule" mandates.

Swapping high order knockback for stun is a change in the power's mechanical purpose, requiring significant justification to allow.

To put it another way, were I to ask for Energy Torrent to be changed from knockback to disorient, I would trigger the "cottage rule's" requirements for a balance-significant justification.

Repulse's change is a "cottage rule violation" as most players use the phrase; I'm specifically pointing out that it isn't a true "violation" of the underlying design principle because the rule only says such changes must be justified by something stronger than just preference, not that such changes can never be made.

For those who have the resources and desire to make it permanent it IS better, I will acknowledge that. But the idea that it can be activated more often assumes that everyone who has it will use it as soon as it's back up, but most people save their heals for when they actually need to be healed, just like one would save Conserve Power for when one actually needs endurance. Conserve Power/Energize doesn't increase recovery or give you endurance, it just cuts down on your consumption. The longer it's active and the more potent it is, the more endurance you're going to recover while it's active. If you want to perma it, sure, it's going to be better, but if you're using your heal when you don't need health, then you get hit hard and it's still recharging, I guess you're just going to be SOL. And for that reason, the intent and typical usage time of the power, (when HP is low, not when endurance is low), I say that it is an exception to the Cottage Rule. And you know what? I'm okay with that. As I already explained, ignoring some imaginary rule doesn't mean the Devs are going to go change powers to completely alter their intent without great care. Even when they do, they tend to make concessions, which is probably why Energize even has an endurance discount component.

You're assuming there's any rule or even guideline that says a power's intended primary purpose cannot change. There is no such design rule. The rule is that if a power has such an intent now, it must still be capable of functioning in that way in the future. It does not need to remain the most important use of the power. If you use Energize as a heal and that interferes with its optimal usage as an endurance discount power, that's your choice. But if your primary usage was as endurance discount, you can still do that with Energize.

The intent is to protect players that use a power in a particular way and want to continue to do so. It is not to ensure that when players start to leverage a new feature of the power they don't negatively impact the old usage. Once you make the decision to start using a power in a new way over the old way, you lose the right to expect the power will continue to function in the old way.

There is no such ANY rule, though. The "cottage rule" was just some fan name given to a joke Castle made about how they wouldn't change build-up to form a cottage in front of you. Unless devs confirm that they actually have a poster up on their wall reminding the Power Designers to not exchange Build-Up's damage and to-hit buff for a cottage summoning power, I don't honestly believe they have any actual "cottage rule" telling them what they can and can't do beyond, obviously, the common sense of the lead designer.

But for the record, if there IS such a rule that says a power must at least retain its prior usage intent, I disagree with it. I think there are some powers that should be changed entirely, and simply could not retain their current usage in a new form. With things like Dimension Shift or Black Hole, the only real option to change them so that they're actually useful without affecting their intent would be to make them Holds instead of Intangibility. Obviously, this would basically make them a clone of a power that already exists in the same set... so in such a case, I think it is justified to consider alternatives that would change them entirely. Maybe keep them as some sort of enemy mitigation, I suppose, but insofar as whether or not it "violates the cottage rule," I suppose it all comes down to your interpretation of what, exactly, the "cottage rule" entails.